e with her; perhaps
next time when she comes back she will be cleverer." The general
conclusion, therefore, I repeat: Transmigration is no longer a living
part of the belief of educated India; the Christian conception of the
Hereafter is as yet only partially taking its place.

CHAPTER XIX

THE IDEAS OF SIN AND SALVATION

"Conscience does make cowards of us _all_."

--SHAKESPEARE.

[Sidenote: Recapitulation.]

[Sidenote: The new Theism.]

In the new India, as fish out of the water die, many things cannot
survive. We have seen the educated Hindu dropping polytheism, forgetting
pantheism, and adopting or readopting monotheism as the basis of his
religious thinking and feeling. For modern enlightenment and Indian
polytheism are incongruous; there is a like incongruity between Indian
pantheism and the modern demand for practical reality. Likewise, both
polytheism and pantheism are inconsistent with Christian thought, which
is no minor factor in the education of modern India. Further, the theism
that the educated Hindu is adopting as the basis of his religion
approaches to Christian Theism. The doctrines of the Fatherhood of God
and the Brotherhood of Man have become commonplaces in his mouth.

[Sidenote: Homage to Christ Himself]

Likewise, the educated Hindu is strongly attracted to the person of
Jesus Christ, in spite of His alien birth and His association with Great
Britain. There is a sweet savour in His presence, and the man of any
spirituality finds it grateful to sit at His feet. That familiar
oriental expression, hyperbolical to our ears, but ever upon the lips in
India to express the relationship of student to trusted professor, or of
disciple to religious teacher, expresses exactly the relationship to
Jesus Christ of the educated man who is possessed of any religious
instinct. To such a man the miracles, the superhuman claims, the highest
titles of Jesus Christ, present no difficulty until they are formulated
for his subscription in some hard dogmatic mould. Then he must question
and discuss.

[Sidenote: Transmigration forgotten.]

Again, the educated Hindu finds himself employing about the dead and the
hereafter not the language of transmigration, but words that convey the
idea of a continuation of our present consciousness in the presence of a
personal God. For life is becoming worth living, and the thought of life
continuing and progressing is acceptable. This present life also has